Navy Gets 8-Megajoule Rail Gun Working

prototypo writes "The Free Lance-Star newspaper is reporting that the Navy Surface Warfare Center in Dahlgren, Virginia has successfully demonstrated an 8-megajoule electromagnetic rail gun. A 32-megajoule version is due to be tested in June. A 64-megajoule version is anticipated to extend the range of naval gunfire (currently about 15 nautical miles for a 5-inch naval gun) to more than 200 nautical miles by 2020. The projectiles are small, but go so fast that have enough kinetic punch to replace a Tomahawk missile at a fraction of the cost. In the final version, they will apex at 95 miles altitude, well into space. These systems were initially part of Reagan's SDI program ("Star Wars"). An interesting tidbit in the article is that the rail gun is only expected to fire ten times or less per day, presumably because of the amount of electricity needed. I guess we now need a warp core to power them."

Comments

Re: 95 miles altitude is space..Way Cool

[Anonymous Coward]

"IIRC, it requires more than 100 times less energy"

Can you convert that into actual reality for us?

So if it takes, say, 50 joules for 'A' to happen you are saying that your solution 'B' takes 50 - (100 x 50) joules to happen?

So instead of A taking 50 joules, B takes -4950 joules?

Look at what you wrote and explain how my explanation of it is somehow wrong.

I mean we all understand 'one percent'. We all understand 'one hundredth'. Why do people use this stupid marketing gibberish stuff when trying to compare values?

Don't you people understand mathematics and english or something?